The process of delivering products has become more complex as it has become increasingly time sensitive in many situations. This is particularly apparent for the delivery of perishable food products and/or prepared meals that may have an effective lifetime of mere days, to no more than a few hours. Moreover, supply chains are being strained to meet shorter delivery times caused by the short effective lifetime of many products. It follows that, for companies shipping products that are sensitive to time, temperature, humidity, etc., or otherwise considered perishable products, there is a challenge in ensuring the products are managed properly, arrive in a desirable condition and within a defined delivery time. Furthermore, for companies receiving products that are sensitive to time, temperature, humidity, etc., or other perishable products, there is a need for ensuring the products being received have been handled properly, are in desirable condition and are within defined delivery times. Often the impact of mishandling is not visually apparent, and therefore invisible to the receiver without product condition monitoring throughout distribution.
However, even with product condition monitoring, the participants in a supply chain may be unable to utilize product data collected during the shipping process until after the product has been delivered. Therefore, those shipping products may not realize that a shipment of perishable products has surpassed a product tolerance until after it has been delivered, e.g., after receipt, upon their inspection. Moreover, because the product may have changed hands several times before reaching its destination, the ultimate recipient does not know which participant in the supply chain mishandled the product, or to what effect.
What is needed is not only a way to acquire data on conditions of or around a product as it moves through commerce, but also a way to acquire data on whether processes of handling the product were complied with. What is further needed is a way to ensure that the data collected is both readily available and as tamper-proof as possible.